[mili]war crimes and impunity/accountability

Russian authorities say they are almost certain that one of the suicide bombers who attacked the Moscow Metro on Monday was a 17-year-old girl from Dagestan. The girl, Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, is believed to be the widow of a senior Caucasus militant killed by Russian security forces late last year. Dagestan, like nearby Chechnya, is struggling to quell militant violence. The morning rush-hour bombings killed 40 people and injured more than 80, most of whom are still in hospital. Update to Russia: Female suicide bombers kill dozens on Moscow subway

As an Ashkenazi (a Jew from European descent) Israeli who was born in Australia to refugee parents, I have the luxury of living in Israel whenever I choose to, with full rights. Like other Jewish citizens, I have the freedom to move, access to hospitals, universities and water. What a luxury. So how can I call this place home and fascist at the same time, asks Alex Nissem.

Call for Action on Global BDS Day, March 30: The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) has issued a call for action to mark the second Global BDS Day of Action on March 30 2010, in solidarity with the Palestinian people and for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli institutions and corporations. This Day of Action coincides with Palestinian Land Day, which marks the struggle against the expropriation and colonization of Palestinian lands and commemorates six Palestinian demonstrators killed by Israeli security forces on the first Land Day in 1976.

Afghanistan’s hard-won post-Taliban human rights achievements are being eroded due to the persistent immunity from prosecution of powerful figures, the intensifying conflict, and the adoption of laws which undermine justice and human rights, a UN official warns. Norah Niland, the outgoing representative of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Afghanistan, called on the Afghan government to repeal a controversial law which gives blanket immunity to perpetrators of mass atrocities committed over the past three decades.

The Economic and Social Council, Having considered with appreciation the report of the Secretary-General on the situation of and assistance to Palestinian women, Recalling the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, in particular paragraph 260 concerning Palestinian women and children, the Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”,

Clashes between government troops and Islamist insurgents have displaced more than 55,000 people from Mogadishu since the beginning of February, with many of them heading out of Somalia to neighbouring Kenya, according to the UN Refugee Agency. In the border town of Liboi, people told IRIN by phone that 300 to 400 Somali families were waiting there to be registered as refugees. In all, almost 570,000 Somalis are refugees and most of them live in camps in Kenya. "Staying in Mogadishu now is like a death sentence: you are not safe; your neighbour is not safe," Hawo Sheiikh Ali, one of the refugees, told IRIN on 22 March.

The Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel) endorses the European Parliament's resolution defending the Goldstone Report. The Coalition supports the call for follow-up investigations into war crimes committed by both sides (Israeli and Palestinian) during Operation Cast Lead. It additionally requests that the European Parliament take diplomatic and legal measures to ensure that the Israeli government will cease all attempts to restrict the work of civil society organizations in the region.

Coalition of Women for Peace have posted a call for Action to Mark the UN Goldstone Report Deadline. Friday, February 5th, marks the deadline given by the UN General Assembly to Israel and to Hamas to launch independent committees to investigate the findings of the Goldstone Report. The Goldstone Report has concluded that Israel's offensive against Gaza during Operation Cast Lead was "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population".

I.M.O.W. Global Council member Rajaa Khuzai argues that the hundreds of thousands of widows in Iraq must no longer be ignored, and that their economic contributions must be harnessed to help the war-torn country recover. Dr. Khuzai is a physician and former member of the Iraqi National Assembly. She is currently the President of the Iraqi Widows' Organization, a role which earned her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2004.

The UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Dr. Shamsul Bari, issued a strong warning on the security, human rights and humanitarian situation in the country, including Somaliland and Puntland. Dr. Bari described as “extremely serious” the situation in South and Central Somalia, where civilians continue to bear the brunt of the fighting between forces of the Transitional Federal Government forces (TFG) and Islamist armed groups.